Commute - what would you be willing to do?

[Anonymous]

Interested in polling the masses: let's pretend you won the elementary school lottery. How long of a commute would you be willing to do for your dream DC public school option, knowing you're in for many years of that commute?

[Anonymous]

20 minute bike ride

[Anonymous]

A lot can happen between PK and 5th grade. Your best laid plans and dream pathway may not be as ideal or even workable as you might have envisioned when your kid was 4. Enter learning differences, personalities and other challenges. It’s hard to make a leap knowing that a lot can change.

[Anonymous]

Is there an option to move, or at least to know that the long commute is saving you a significant amount of money in housing costs? Is there a workable carpool option?

My DH drove half hour or biked for over an hour to bring kids to day care, because of the cost savings. But it was a fairly short-term solution (3.5 years).

[Anonymous]

25 minutes max so RT would be 50 minutes.

Even above is pushing it because IMO no elementary DCPS school is all that great to be worth a long commute for a long time.

[Anonymous]

I think 25 minutes max, door to door, in rush hour.

[Anonymous]

30 minutes.

[Anonymous]

We don’t have a car, so this would be by public transit.

Depends on the age of the kid.

For fifth grade and above, I’d do prob 45 mins each way. Because in 5th, you’re doing a PITA commute (an hour an a half round trip! Each way!) with your kid, but then 6th - 12th grade, they could do it themselves and 45 mins isn’t unreasonable.

For elementary school? I’d say 20 mins. If it’s on the way to my office, I’d prob cap at 60 mins total time (home to school to office). The stakes are lower, and the total time commitment in years is much higher.

For PK? I’m going to the closest school, period.

[Anonymous]

PK: 10 min
K-5: 15 min
3-4 that feeds into desired MS: 30 min
5 that feeds into desired MS: 40 min

[Anonymous]

20 mins max OW

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PK: 10 min
K-5: 15 min
3-4 that feeds into desired MS: 30 min
5 that feeds into desired MS: 40 min

Yep. If you’re at a school that doesn’t work for your kid (behavior issues or lack of academic differentiation, or future feeder pattern) the mental and emotional cost-benefit math on commuting starts shifting year after year until you lottery out and suck up the commute or move.

When PK and K at our IB were going mostly ok, I was horrified by the idea of a 25 min drive to the nearest “better” school. Now I do that drive, the 25 minute drive back home, then park and walk 10 minutes to my office (which is also a 10 minute walk from our IB) every day. A rough school year tipped the scales so we lotteried. Now I don’t even mind the “cost” of commuting to have the “benefit” of confidence in the school and feeder pattern.

Also, for us moving makes much less sense than commuting. We would give up a really low mortgage payment. Even renting out our house and renting an apartment to be closer would be a net loss for us each month, let alone swallowing $2-3k more in mortgage to get a smaller house nearer a better IB or charter. And our offices are downtown and further east so assuming we’d be WOTP or uptown to be by a school we like more than our IB, we would just be trading commute with kid one way for each parent per day, for a shorter commute for the kid but even longer commutes for both parents (and probably monthly parking fees for me) both ways.

The fact is that if you want to live and work in DC and raise kids, the school stuff is hard. This was the hard we chose over things we found even harder.

[Anonymous]

I'd sell or rent out my house and rent near the school. We used to live 0.2 miles away from elementary school.The mile we have to drive now and for the next 3 years, is painful.

[Anonymous]

ECE and early elementary, 10 minutes each way. After that, 20 minutes each way.

If we needed to move I’d make it a priority to live within 10-15 minutes of our schools. Even in the suburbs that can be a challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PK: 10 min
K-5: 15 min
3-4 that feeds into desired MS: 30 min
5 that feeds into desired MS: 40 min

This feels about right, but I would move the third category to 2-4. I would have said 3rd before we just struck out AGAIN in first grade and now everyone we know well enough to talk lottery with has had the "big win" necessary to set them up through 12th grade, and we're in the same place we always are: trying again in 8 months. I kind of wish I had started casting a broader net earlier, because I underestimated how much the uncertainty would weigh on me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PK: 10 min
K-5: 15 min
3-4 that feeds into desired MS: 30 min
5 that feeds into desired MS: 40 min

Yep. If you’re at a school that doesn’t work for your kid (behavior issues or lack of academic differentiation, or future feeder pattern) the mental and emotional cost-benefit math on commuting starts shifting year after year until you lottery out and suck up the commute or move.

When PK and K at our IB were going mostly ok, I was horrified by the idea of a 25 min drive to the nearest “better” school. Now I do that drive, the 25 minute drive back home, then park and walk 10 minutes to my office (which is also a 10 minute walk from our IB) every day. A rough school year tipped the scales so we lotteried. Now I don’t even mind the “cost” of commuting to have the “benefit” of confidence in the school and feeder pattern.

Also, for us moving makes much less sense than commuting. We would give up a really low mortgage payment. Even renting out our house and renting an apartment to be closer would be a net loss for us each month, let alone swallowing $2-3k more in mortgage to get a smaller house nearer a better IB or charter. And our offices are downtown and further east so assuming we’d be WOTP or uptown to be by a school we like more than our IB, we would just be trading commute with kid one way for each parent per day, for a shorter commute for the kid but even longer commutes for both parents (and probably monthly parking fees for me) both ways.

The fact is that if you want to live and work in DC and raise kids, the school stuff is hard. This was the hard we chose over things we found even harder.

This is the thinking I'm currently struggling with. Our current PK/K situation is working out fine, but the feeder pattern isn't going to work for us long-term. We matched with an ideal school this year, but the commute is less than ideal; but if we know we're going to swap eventually anyway, it feels like it probably makes sense to take advantage of our lottery luck now and just suck it up for the commute. I'd hate to wait for a rough school year and then not get the lottery luck.